Well.... knowing how I go about these same things, it probably cost you twice or maybe three times the amount of money you'd have spent having it professionally done, but chances are, half of it didn't NEED to be done in the first place, and you only justifiedit as "preventive maintenance".

Probably all those jobs could have been done professionally in 1/2 to 1/3 the time you took. The question is, is your time more valuable than say a shop charging you $60-80/hr? If you're like most of us, our time is worth every dime to ourselves we save as compared to having someone do it for you.So what that it took you 3 months, it is done and you can be proud that you did it your self. Just so you know, it took me 6 years to complete my conversion. Good Luck, TomC

Think of all the fun you had doing what you did. This is one of the major reasons we have coaches. Doing the work yourself more than paid for itself in the satifisfaction it gave you. Plus now you know a whole lot more about the hot rod 4106, particularily the entire front end. Ready for a high speed fun run to the local casino?

This assumes everything comes apart like it should and there are no surprises like bent or broken parts or parts welded together from rust.

The paint job I wouldn't even attempt to price out because I hate doing paint and body work unless it's to remove a panel and replace a panel or take out windows and skin the holes over. $10,000? $15,000? more? Ida Noe.

For me, working on my 4106 has become a passion and not a job. I bought it 3 years ago, and was ready to sell after 1 year...was overwhelmed...then my cousin's husband showed up..we have been acquaintances for 40 years, but in the last 2 have become the best of friends sharing in the experience in sprucing up this honey. Though I have all the money in it...he has just as much love. How much did I save in dollars and cents by us doing the work...don't know..never calculated...but I Know that I would me missing a lot more than cash if I had not...for what its worth

That also depends on whether the billing is done "Shop Hours" or actual "MAN Hours" The shop or man hour prices vary depending on where you are and how busy a shop is. There are some that charge the higher price because they have little or no competition or are so busy that they feel it necessary to charge more. ( Not counting greed factors ).

So if your shop has 3 people working and you have all 3 work on something for 1 hour, That's 3 man hours, even though only an hour has passed. So at $100 per hour that would be $300.

If a shop that bills "shop hours" and 3 people work on something for 1 hour then you pay for the 1 hour "shop rate" of $100 then the actual rate would be something like $33 per hour (based on man hours).

The you get to BOOK rate. Many mechanics use "The Book" to calculate rates. Based on what the book says it takes to do a certain job. ( These are usually inflated for the simple jobs. ) It may actually take the mechanic 10 minutes to do the actual job but the book says bill for 3 hours. Which do you think is going to get billed?

Then again the book may state a certain job requires 10 hours to do, But due to delays and diversions and parts situations and reworks it really takes 15 hours. Which would you assume the shop manager will be charging?

Here is the tricky part. If he charges for actual time you will be mad at him if he quoted the job based on the "book time"... If he charges the book time he is technically losing money against other full rate paying jobs.

Having myself been a dealership mechanic in another life. The bosses only pay you for your hourly rate. But do more than make up by charging the customer the highest rate that they can get away with.

Don't get me wrong, There are people that play very fair and do excellent work that is affordable. Chances are they don't have a million dollar investment in their operation. Unless they have a reputation and resources that make up for those times that you can't help but technically lose money on some jobs.

So that said.. Although I may not understand some things I do understand what consitutes reasonable and fair work for value.

I know a number of people that make money despite the way they treat people, I never understood how that works. I guess I wasn't built that way.

Dallas,Must be that part of the country. Out here shop rates are closer to $100/hr.

Lee

Lee,

When I got here Bryce and I discussed this and talked about Flat (Book) rate Vs: Manhour Rate. As Dr. Dave put it, some shops will gouge the customer any way they can.

We chose our shop rate based on the rates in the area charged by independent truck service shops since we are the only bus repair facility in the local area. Our rates are charged at actual manhour rates especially since when working on conversions it is nearly impossible to know what has been done by a previous owner.

Just saying that rates vary from region to region. Seattle and western Washington seem to have higher rates. I heard, last night, that Washington has the highest gasoline prices in the country; higher than Alaska and Hawaii. Why? Because we'll pay them.